1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed generally to an apparatus and method for creating a record that can be used to identify an animal using biometric information gathered from the animal. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for creating a record that can be used to identify an animal using biometric information gathered from the eye of the animal.
2. Description of the Related Art
The issue of animal identification is as old as the domestication of animals by humans. Hot iron branding, for example, harks back to ancient Egypt. Until very recently, obvious and ancient methods of animal identification sufficed for social needs. Cattle in western United States range lands, for example, are still branded and companion animals, e.g., dogs and cats, are still tagged.
The advent of major new problems in various animal industries has accelerated the demand for new methods of identification. Most profound, perhaps, is the issue of food safety in the meat industry, particularly with respect to cattle. The emergence of dramatic new diseases carried in meat animals, most notably Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (xe2x80x9cBSExe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cmad cow diseasexe2x80x9d) and Johnne""s disease, has generated a demand for individual animal identification that allows trace-back of each animal from current location (e.g., slaughterhouse) to birthplace. This concern carries over to other diseases such as brucellosis and tuberculoses, and also to toxicants and pollutants such as lead, PCBs, estrogen-mimicking compounds, and the like.
Apart from food safety concerns, conclusive and permanent identification of animals thus allowing for trace-back is important to animal related industries. Specifically, the cattle, pig, and sheep industries would benefit from the ability to trace these animals throughout their lives for numerous reasons, for example to determine proper title to the sold or purchased animal, to evaluate breeding operations, and to inventory herd animals, among others. These issues would be especially relevant to those involved in the raising and breeding of registered animals. Breeders of other animals, for example, cats and dogs would benefit from the ability to track animals, particularly registered animals, for title and genetic purposes. As aquaculture develops the need for conclusive and permanent fish identification would be important for the same reasons as for the cattle industry. Veterinary medicine would benefit from the ability to positively identify the animal to be treated, thus assisting in rendering proper treatment to the animal. An additional benefit could be in facilitating the tracking of veterinary medical records. In the future, a conclusive and permanent means of identification could be important in order to differentiate genetically identical clones in all species.
In animal research, the animals (e.g., dogs, cats, mice, rats, pigs, primates, and the like) must be identified for record-keeping purposes. And, in the case of dogs and cats, proper identification is required to prove that the animal in the laboratory is not a kidnapped pet.
Accordingly, a conclusive means of identifying animals is needed. Numerous methods have been used in order to identify animals, all with various shortcomings. Hot iron branding has been used for centuries and is costly to the cattle industry in lost hide value. Moreover, it is painful to the animals. Freeze branding works only on dark hided animals. In addition, freeze branding is likewise painful to the animal and decreases the hide value. Tattooing is labor intensive, alterable, and difficult to read. Tattooing is likewise painful to the animal. Tags placed in the ears and other places on the animals are easily lost. Tags are easily removed and can be falsified.
Cutting the dewlaps and ear notching are both possibly alterable and painful to the animal. Using paint to mark an animal is non-permanent and possibly alterable. Microchips, whether implanted or in ear tags, are potentially alterable and expensive. Additionally, when implanted, microchips can migrate within the animal making them difficult to relocate and are not presently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (xe2x80x9cFDAxe2x80x9d). Moreover, at present, microchips have not been standardized, and thus, the proper reader may not be available to evaluate the information on the microchip implanted in the animal. Ear tags containing microchips suffer from the same drawbacks as regular ear tags in addition to the drawbacks relating to microchip usage. DNA testing is very expensive and requires a substantial amount of time to acquire the results. Furthermore, DNA testing would be unable to distinguish clones as they will have the same DNA. Considering the large number of animals that, for example, would be passed through a feedlot in a given period of time, DNA testing is not timely enough for trace-back purposes.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method which can be used to create a record which provides a conclusive and permanent means for identifying virtually any species of animal using biometric information gathered from the animal. The method of the present invention relies upon imaging the retinal vasculature of an individual animal to create the identifying record. Imaging the retinal vasculature provides a unique, unchanging, permanent, inexpensive, and unalterable method of identifying individual animals. Moreover, the method is equally effective on the eyes of living or recently dead animals.
The method of the present invention creates a permanent record of an animal through a series of steps including, preliminarily acquiring an image of the retinal vasculature (box 20. FIG. 7) of the animal of interest; digitizing that image (box 23, FIG. 7) if the image is not a digital image; analyzing the image to determine if the image is satisfactory for further analysis; storing the image; and analyzing the image for unique anatomical landmarks. The image and data gathered therefrom may be stored in a database for later retrieval and comparison against other images. The data gathered from the image may be compared against other stored data in the database to determine the identity of the animal, assuming that data has previously been gathered and stored on the same animal.
In an effort to increase the dependability of the data gathered and to reduce fraud and misrepresentation regarding the identity of an animal, when the digital image is confirmed as acceptable and acquired for further analysis, the latitude and longitude of the place where the image is created and the satellite set real time may be recorded along with the image.
The retinal imaging system of the present invention would likely include an imaging device, for example a digital camera and a conventional personal computer. Preferably, the system would also include a global positioning system (xe2x80x9cGPSxe2x80x9d) device which would simultaneously time and date stamp the acquired image as well as stamp the image with the location where the imaging took place by recording the latitude and longitude of that location.